Is this what they call destiny?

People say your life is determined by your choices. Maybe. I don’t disagree. But more than that, I would say your life is determined by which side of the world you are born in.

Don’t believe me? I’ll tell you why.

We all live on the same planet. When it’s night here, it’s day in the other half. But that’s not the only thing that’s starkly different between the two sides. In one side of the world, you are mocked for something for which you are celebrated in the other side.

We rush to buy face creams that promise to make us “fair and lovely” in India.
And guys and girls spend whole days on beaches trying to get tanned over on the other side.

If you don’t take care of your parents once you settle down in life, you are ungrateful in India.
If you don’t move out of the house once you turn 18, you are mocked there.

Movies here show a girl (photographed nude my mistake) deciding to commit suicide as “who will marry her” after this, and showing your body is worse than dying. And there are nude beaches there.

Love marriages are nothing short of a scandal here, especially if they involve different castes and religions (“unity in diversity” is just a saying learnt to get marks in school by the way).
And parents are more than happy that you actually found someone who loves you, on the other side.

You are judged if you are not a virgin when you get married,
And there you are judged if you are a virgin!

Marriages are for life, here. You give a person more chances before you give up on them.
People seem to be much faster in moving on over there.

A divorce is a taboo. If a girl is divorced and she still chooses to show her face to the outside world, her head held high, it must have been her fault. Worse still, if someone gets married the second time in a lavish way (for that’s the marriage that’s going to last for them, so why can’t they celebrate it), they are judged.
Divorce just isn’t such a big deal there.

Something so normal on one side of the world, is considered to be a crime or a joke on the other. So basically there is no right or wrong in this world. It all depends on which side of the world you are in!

It’s just strange, isn’t it? To think that your life could have been completely different had you been born a few thousand kilometres away.

Maybe this is what they mean by destiny.